Sunday, January 29, 2012

"I Said Ain't to Make a Point!"

"I said ain't to make a point!" -My Uncle Ron

This phrase interestingly came up in a conversation I was having with my Uncle Ron. The conversation originally began by him telling me that he had to put my grandmother into an assistant living home because her alzheimers was getting bad and it was to hard to deal with on his own. At one point he said, "I ain't dealing with it anymore, I'm tired. And yes, I said ain't to make a point." I was not sure what to say at this point, and for a moment I just thought to myself, "Did he really just say, 'I said ain't to make a point?'" The next thing I know he says that he knows I am an English Major and understands that "ain't" is not politically correct to say, but because he was "making a point" he felt the word "ain't" was sufficient for his word choice.
The reason this phrase stuck out to me so much, is because I found it ironic that we had just had this conversation in class; that because we are English Major students, people tend to feel they have to be politically correct around us because we are preceived as "grammar police." I also found this phrase interesting because I did not understand why he felt he had to use poor grammar (word choice) in order to make a point. There are many other words he could have used that are considered, politically correct, and would have helped him make a profound statement that, he was tired and not going to take care of my grandmother on his own anymore.
My imitation of what my Uncle was trying to do is to say something like: "At my age, I do not have the energy to take care of Grandma anymore, and I refuse to continue to care for her on my own." or "Providing for Grandma is taking a toll on me physically, mentally, and emotionally. I just can't do it anymore." Although this seems a little more wordy than what he originally said, these two imitations would have summed up everything we had talked about and he still would of made a profound statement in the fact that he can no longer provide for my Grandmother anymore.

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